Land of Black Gold in Bengali

Kaustubh Adhikari and a college group of die-hard Tintin fans in Kolkata, India, cataloged several changes and translation errors in the 1988 Bengali edition of Land of Black Gold.

Most references to Islam were removed. In some cases Arabic has been translated to Bengali, in other cases it was erased.

In some cases frames or whole lines of frames have been removed. Here are some samples:

Here the Arabic cursing was removed and replaced with something like traditional cartoon swearwords.

In the English edition, Snowy says “Such language! ...Don’t listen to him Tintin... even in Arabic

Page 20, frame 8

In English, Tintin says “I’d like to get to the bottom of it...” and Snowy replies “You aren’t starting another of your adventures are you? Why don’t we retire?”

There are a number of other similar mistakes in translation or placement of dialog.

Page 6, frame 10

The aide’s Arabic is translated into Bengali.

Page 36, frame 12

The Arabic is erased from the ransom note.

Page 36, frame 12

On page 36, the second row of framesshowing Muslims praying in a mosque and Thompson and Thomson crashing through the mosque wall in their jeephas been removed entirely. Furthermore, the Muslim call to prayer has been removed in frame 1.